Evan Rachel Wood has detailed the years of sexual abuse she was subjected to in a powerful testimony to America’s Congress.

The 30-year-old Westworld actress was joined by Amanda Nguyen, chief executive of civil rights organization RISE, and Rebecca O’Connor, the president of anti-sexual violence organization RAINN, as they testified to the House Judiciary Subcommittee in support of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act.

As she spoke of her own experiences, Evan revealed that she had been “mentally and physically tortured until my abuser felt I had proven my love for them”.

Detailing the “toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse”, which “altered the course of my life”, Evan told the subcommittee that her ex-partner had raped her while unconscious, bound up her hands and feet in “sick rituals” and beaten her and told her “unspeakable things”.

“My self esteem and spirit were broken. I was deeply terrified and that fear lives with me to this day,” shared the star. “So often we speak of these assaults as no more than a few minutes of awfulness, but the scars last a lifetime. Even though these experiences happened a decade ago, I still struggle with the aftermath.

“Seven years after my rapes - plural - I was diagnosed with long-term PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), which I had been living with all that time without knowledge about my condition... I simply thought I was going crazy.”

The actress is campaigning for The Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, which establishes statutory rights for survivors, gives victims access to sexual assault counsellors and distributes “fair and efficient rape kits”, to be passed at federal level in all 50 U.S. states. It has currently only been applied in nine.

“This bill is just one step in the right direction of setting the bar higher for what’s right and what the standard will be that we set for society,” Evan said, describing the bill as a “safety net that may help save someone’s life”.